How to Improve the Customer Service of Your Business

If you are running you own business, then one of the most important factors you must take into consideration should be your outreach plans, which includes your customer service. Your customer service forms the backbone of your outreach with existing and potential future clients, and it is also a deciding factor for the demand of your business in the market. In order to establish a good network, your customer service programmes should be prompt, efficient, and responsive. Some of the major steps you could probably take as the owner of a business to ensure the same include the following:

Strengthen the customer service skills being offered by incorporating qualities such as empathy, adaptability, consistency, and patience as these are indispensable for any budding business.

Emphasise on clear and simple interpersonal communication skills as well as prompt, consistent, and goal-oriented work ethics. Work ethics is not something you should compromise with, especially when it comes to maintaining a good customer service department.

Try to improve and consolidate customer interaction by practising active listening skills, personal communication based on common interest grounds, timely follow-ups, and most importantly, by prioritising the customer’s needs and by being able to own up to mistakes and avoiding them in the future.

If you are looking at improving the customer service of your business then you must always ensure that you provide some kind of a channel for the customers which would enable them to offer feedback on the customer service of the business. This does not just ensure customer satisfaction and a window for addressing their grievances, but it also helps you to build upon the positive feedback as well as learning from the negative feedback about what strategies should you be changing in your business.

One of the most modern and efficient ways to address the needs of your customers and to improve the customer service of your business is to incorporate and utilise chatbots such as the AI chatbot for customer relations. Since this step is quite unconventional (especially when compared with steps 1-4) and a comparatively recent approach, the ‘how’ and ‘why’s of using chatbots for customer services is described in further detail below.

What is a Chatbot?

Basically, a chatbot is a software which uses the concept of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, to initiate and stimulate a conversation between a user and the software using natural, fluent language and vocabulary through a messaging service (via either mobile applications or websites). The chatbots are designed and programmed in a specific way so that they can create the simulation in a convincing fashion, quite similar to how an actual human being would do it.

If we look at a chatbot from a technological point of view, it is a very good representation of the evolution of a question-answering technology via an NLP (natural language processing) system. This process is one of the most advanced and user-friendly interventions in the recent times, and is highly beneficial for implementation in the areas of customer outreach and service.

How does a Chatbot work?

A chatbot receives information from the user and then generates a response which it returns to them. This process is carried out through two different tasks, which are- (a) analysis of the user request, and (b) returning the response generated. Although this looks like a fairly simple process, but there are many tiny, complex processes involved in carrying this out.

Why use a Chatbot?

It has been found in a study that more than 66% of customers have participated in an interaction with a chatbot in last year alone. If chatbots are utilised on a large scale, they could save up to 80% of the total time as well as 30% of the total money that is being spent on answering customer’s questions in a different setup where humans facilitate these conversations.

Therefore, besides the advanced technology that it comes with, chatbots are extremely helpful in terms of the time, money, and human resources it can save. It has also been found that more than 60% of customers prefer having their queries sorted out by a chatbot-initiated conversation over messaging than actually calling up the customer service helplines through their phone as it does away with any inhibitions as well as saves a lot of time due to the high traffic on many such helplines.

Around 40% of customers have also stated that it does not matter to them whether their problem is being solved by a human being or a chatbot, as long as a speedy and prompt solution is guaranteed, and it is a given that chatbots offer fast solutions to most of the common queries that it can process. Chatbots are being used by customers across different companies not just for feedback generation or answering of queries and complaints, but for a wide range of important tasks such as booking tickets, making reservations, bill payments and also for finding human responders for the problems that cannot be answered by the chatbot.

There are many companies which offer chatbot services and facilities to enhance customer experiences that you could turn to, such as the AI Chatbot. These companies help you out in building, customising, integrating, and developing fast and convenient solutions based on the needs of your business in order to improve your customer relations.

How can chatbots be used?

If you own a business, you might want to use a chatbot for the following functions:

Starting live chats with the customer

Providing the customer with options for getting quick answers during an emergency

Helping the customers to register their complaints

Facilitating a feedback generation system for the customer

Solving problems and answering queries of customers through a question-answer system

Directing customers to other channels of customer service depending on their needs

Most business companies use a hybrid approach for their customer service, which involves both chatbots and actual human beings working in this department, and is also the most conducive solution for promoting a well-balanced customer outreach programme.

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